Music And Politics
by Zappanale
Summary: A sequel to the story Guiding Light. Helga, finally in a romantic relationship with Arnold, tells her father the news and gets a less than ecstatic reply. Soon thereafter, Big Bob starts to plot against them. Rated Teen for some violence and language.
1. Big Bob's Big Problem

_The vagabond who's rapping at your door_

_Is standing in the clothes,_

_That you once wore_

_Strike another match, girl,_

_Start anew_

_It's all over now, baby blue._

**_It's All Over Now Baby Blue, _**by **_Bob Dylan

* * *

_**

"Who's Arnold?"

Helga sighed, looked at her feet. Scowled. Leave it to Big Bob not to notice _anything_ about his daughter's life.

She'd just told him about her and Arnold. About their new relationship. And as it seemed there wasn't a thing in the world he could care less about.

She stood and he sat in the trophy/TV/palace room, Bob in a chair and Helga in the hotspot. He scowled at her now, trying to place a name to a face: Arnold. He didn't care too much, but it mildy surprised him that his daughter--though she has Pataki blood--got a boyfriend. That weird wheezy kid who was always hanging out by the trashcans? Nah.

He lost interest. "Yeah, sure. Whatever. Tell Miriam to go light on the gravy tonight." Helga growled something in response, under her breath, and Bob went back to the paper.

And then he saw the sports page and it clicked: Arnold. Blonde, football-shaped head.

"Hey, girl!" Helga turned around, eyebrow raised. Patent Pataki scowl. Bob said, "Arnold the grandson of that old jerk that runs the boarding house?"

"Yeah, _dad."_

"The one who beat me at golf and knocked me into a vat of gelatin at the Parent's Day games?"

"Yep, that's the one." She snickered at the memory.

Bob stood and dropped the paper and raised a hand. Helga stood straight, eyes wide: what was going on?

"I _forbid _you to see that kid again! I _forbid_ it! No Pataki is gonna' mess around with people of that..._caliber._"

Great, she thought. He finally notices something about me.

"You can't stop me, dad. I'll see Arnold _if I want to!"_

"Oh, no you won't, missy! I hear any more about this and there'll be bad trouble, you got me! You aren't gonna' see that kid anymore! _Ever!"_

_"_I'd like to see you _make me_, dad!"

She stormed off, taking her time. Bob grunted something and sat back down, his mind working. How could he keep her away from that kid?

A small voice said, 'Just leave it alone', but like with all other things Bob shoved it under the carpet and reached for the phone. It was time to get ruthless. Time to do business the Big Bob Pataki way.

He grabbed the phone and dialed a number.

* * *

**Author's Note: The song is from the album _Bringing it all Back Home_, I think. I'd thank to thank Acosta Perez Jose Ramiro for the idea, which he suggested in a review.**

**Also: I highly reccomend you read--or at least skim--my story "Guiding Light". Otherwise, some of this might confuse you.**

**Please read and review!**


	2. She Needs Him

_And all at once I knew,_

_I knew at once_

_I knew he needed me_

_Until the day I die_

_I'll wonder why,_

_I knew he needed me_

_I could be fantasy, oh-oh_

_Or maybe it's because,_

_He needs me_

_And if it turns out real_

_Good luck, and turn the wheel_

**_He Needs Me,_** by **_Shelly Duvall _**and **_Harry Nilhsson_**, featured in the 1980 film **_Popeye_** and the 2002 film **_Punch-Drunk Love_**

**

* * *

**

They were still talking about it. Even now, a week in a half after the fact.

Arnold got on the bus and listened to some of the whispers: "I heard they've been together for years and have just kept it a secret", "I heard she hypnotized him", "I heard it's just all a big prank!"

When he passed some of them they giggled. Harold let loose his laugh, all five million decibels of it, and nudged Stinky and pointed and laughed again. Arnold tried to ignore them but he couldn't help the blush that creeped up on his cheeks.

Ever since the day he'd accepted Helga's feelings for him and realized he'd had some of his own he'd been living a daze. It was just so sudden a change: no more spitwads and drinking fountain splashes and pranks. She was nice now. She'd come out of the shell.

But she was still hiding something. Arnold couldn't put his finger on it, and it was probably just paranoia, but nevertheless the feeling was there and he couldn't help it.

She sat in their usual seat: just across the aisle from Gerald and Phoebe--who now sat together--and far in the back. Arnold remembered Gerald's reaction during school on the day him and Helga had gotten togther: "Man, what is _wrong_ with you!?" He still couldn't accept it. Arnold was having trouble himself.

He walked to the seat and noticed she was scowling. He wished she wouldn't, because the scowl was just ugly. And besides, he hated seeing her unhappy about things. Always had, in a way.

Most days they just sat together, silent, holding hands. Sometimes she'd read him poetry. Sometimes he'd help her with homework. Sometimes they'd listen to music on a Walkman. But today, as soon as he sat down, she began to talk in a high voice: anger all over it.

"Geez, Arnold, you would not _believe _what my blowhard dad said to me last night. It's _insane._"

He tried to ask but she interjected.

"I told him about us, right? About how we're...y'know...and he totally _flips his lid_. The guy blew a gasket! He told me that," she cleared his voice and started imitating her father's loud masculine baritone, "'If I ever hear about you and him together there'll be trouble!' Sheesh, what a _jerk._"

She looked at Arnold, eyebrow arched. He said, "Do you think he...well, do you think he really meant it? Was it an empty threat?"

Helga laughed. "Of course it was. My dad wouldn't do anything. He's all talk." She smiled at him and Arnold smiled back: back to normal. Well, not _normal. _Normal would be her calling him a football-head and tossing a spitwad at him.

"You mind if I read you something I wrote?"

"Go ahead."

In the seat across from them, Gerald shook his head, thinking that Arnold always _did_ have a strange taste in girls. 'Least he was happy.

He caught a few words of Helga's poem.

He suppressed a laugh.

* * *

**Author's Note: _Punch-Drunk Love_ is probably my current all-time favorite film. I highly reccomend it to anyone who likes off-beat romance film, like _Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind _or _Wild at Heart _or _True Romance._ I'm a sucker for the stuff. David Lynch, too.**

**I hope you enjoy, and please remember to drop a review if you liked it/hated it.**


	3. Raising The Golem

_"Your ideas are terrifying and your hearts are faint. Your acts of pity and cruelty are absurd, committed with no calm at all, as if irresistible. Finally, you fear blood more and more. Blood and time."_

_- **Paul Valery**_

**_

* * *

_**

They met in an old parking lot in a dilapidated neighborhood and that suited Big Bob Pataki just fine.

He was leaning against the hood of his car, dressed for the evening in a dark coat and a fedora. A brown paper bag was laying on the ground by his feet. Every once in a while he checked his watch: where are these punks? He'd been here for an hour now.

An hour was too long. It made him think about what he was doing. It made him _feel_ about what he was doing. That wasn't good.

There they are: two faint shapes in the darkness, both large, both intimidating. Bob said, "Is it you?"

Wolfgang the bully replied, "Sure is." He stepped into the beam from the headlights. The other boy beside him was Ludwig: both big and mean. Both angry.

Bob took off his hat and said, "It isn't a tough job I got for ya'." Wolfgang laughed.

Bob had hired them before for things like this before. Intimidation stuff. They weren't reliable, but it beat hiring some crook with mob connections who'd want a percentage in your business. Bob had heard all those stories and they taught him the lesson.

"So what's the scoop?" Wolfgang asked, crossing his arms, looking impetetuous.

"My daughter is messing around with some boy. I want you to tail her and maybe brace the kid. Make sure they keep away from each other. I'll give you a hundred now and twenty bucks a day for the rest of the work. Got me?"

Wolfgang was about to protest but then Ludwig stepped forward and said, "That isn't enough." Bob shook his head. "You aren't gettin' a penny more."

He kicked the bag at him. Wolfgang picked it up and looked inside: a hundred dollars in fives and tens, crumpled. Used money. He said, "You want us to hurt the boy?"

Bob thought it over.

"Only if he gives you lip," he finally said. And just like that they were gone into the darkness, of to do whatever other evil they'd had planned for the night.

Bob sighed. He felt like he'd just raised a golem.

* * *

**Author's Note: Sorry if Wolfgang or Ludwig's dialogue is out of character. It's been a while since I've seen either of them.**

**I don't know much about the poet who wrote the quote at the beginning. I read it in the beginning of Cormac McCarthy's _Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness in the West._ If you're into dense books with a lot of symbolism and poetic-ish writing, or if you're a Western fan, I reccomend it. Very convoluted writing style, though, so it might take some getting used to.**

**Please read and review!**


	4. The Glory of Love

_Ah, but remember that the city is a funny place_

_Something like a circus,_

_Or a sewer_

_And just remember different people have peculiar tastes_

_And the,_

_the glory of love_

_Yeah, but now, now,_

_The glory of love,_

_Might see you through._

_You're my coney island baby now._

_Yeah, you're my coney island baby now._

**_Coney Island Baby, _**by **_Lou Reed_**

**_

* * *

_**

They sat together at lunch, talking. Helga was telling him a story about a road trip she'd taken with her mother, about how she'd won five hundred bucks on the buckin' bronco thing. Arnold laughed and then Helga opened her lunchbox, frowned, and snapped it shut with a groan.

"I can't believe she forgot _again." _Arnold looked at her and smiled sympathetically. "I'll go buy you something," he said, and walked to the lunch line. Helga watched him go and then her eyebrows fluttered and she swooned, yanking out the locket, speaking low and fast: "If this a dream I'd like to never awaken."

If she hadn't been looking at that locket she would've seen what happened.

Arnold rounded the corner and was headed to the lunch line when two pairs of strong hands grabbed on to him and pulled him away, through a door, into the playground. He looked up and saw faces: Wolfgang? Ludwig?

"What's going on?" he asked.

Wolfgang leaned in close. _Real _close. Arnold was shoved against the brick wall and the two stood over him, looking down, feet ready to start kicking. Ludwig said, "Keep away from the girl and you won't get hurt, alright?" Arnold frowned. What?

"What are you _talking _about? You mean Helga?"

They nodded.

"Why do you _even care!?_" A foot landed in his stomach and Arnold let out a harsh cough and bent over at the waist, trying to hold his lunch in.

Wolfgang laughed. He found it hilarious. "Just do what we say. We don't need a reason."

And just like that, they were gone.

Arnold sat a minute trying to catch his breath, thinking hard: what possible reason could they have for doing this to him? It didn't matter. He wasn't going to listen to a couple of overgrown thugs, beating or not. Whether it was pride or love, he wasn't going to.

He stood after a while and walked back inte the cafteria, almost limping. Everyone stared: hair all askew, shirt and pants dirty, clutching his stomach. Someone said, "Geez, he got worked over." Sounded like Sid.

Helga looked like she was going to cry for a second but then her face screwed into a scowl and she said, "Who was it, football-head!? I'll make their face into stuffing!" Arnold sat down beside her and shook his head, breathing heavily. "It was no one," he said. "It doesn't matter. Some...some mean high schooler."

She looked at him for a second, eyebrow raised, and then smiled. "Where's my lunch?"

Arnold smiled back. He couldn't help it. They joined hands.

Wolfgang and Ludwig looked through a window, frowning. "I didn't think he'd listen," Ludwig said. "What'll we do now?"

Wolfgang considered. "We'll get him at his house or while he's walking home and _really_ work him over. Teach him not to play around."

Ludwig laughed and they walked off together, looking for some dive to hang out in.

Neither would admit that they felt bad about this mission. Neither had the guts.

* * *

**Author's Note: The song is from the album _Berlin._**

**Once again, I'm sorry if Ludwig or Wolfgang seemed out of character.**

**Please read and review!**


	5. Starry Nights

_And curtains laced with diamonds dear, for you_

_And all the Roman noblemen for you_

_And Kingdom's Christian soldiers dear, for you _

_And knights in flaming silver robes for you_

_And a bat that with a kiss turns prince for you_

_Ah, swoop swoop_

_Oh baby, rock rock_

_Swoop swoop_

_Rock rock_

**_Andy's Chest_**, by**_ Lou Reed

* * *

_**

"...so then I tell the guy, 'Pal, I swear to God, you come near me again and I'll put a hole in your fuckin' stomach.' But he comes by the next day, trying to weasel a slice, and...I'm sorry. I know you don't like those stories."

She smiled at him and patted his hand: hers small and smooth and delicate, his massive and knotted with scars and veins and chipped nails. "It's alright, Lonnie," she said. "I know how you must miss those days."

They sat at a window table in Chez Pierre that they almost didn't get because Lonnie was wearing a leather jacket and a hawaiian shirt. Eventually he bossed his way in, though. It always worked that way. In that crowd of diners he stuck out like a sore thumb: 6'3, 250 pounds, longish black hair combed back. Dr. Morgan Bliss blended right in, dressed elegantly in a black dress and subtle makeup.

There was an ashtray beside Lonnie filled with crushed cigarette. He had one now in his hand and it looked like a toothpick in that massive paw. The wait staff were trying to work up their nerve to ask him to put it out. Most of them just glared.

Lonnie smiled and squeezed her palm. "Not anymore," he said. They shared a quick kiss and then went to their meals. After a while Dr. Bliss said, "Could you _please_ not smoke?" Lonnie glanced up at her and snubbed the cigarette out.

They ate the rest of the meal in silence, and then when it was finished Lonnie paid--and drastically undertipped--and they walked into the parking lot.

"Nice night," he said. She chuckled.

He walked her to her car and when she got in he said, "I'll see you at your office tommorrow." Dr. Bliss nodded and blew him a kiss and drove away.

Lonnie looked up at the sky: dark like black chocolate, speckled with stars. He couldn't see the moon.

He got in his old car and wrote in his journal a little bit and then started drive, looking around at the streets. Seeing how they'd changed.

He saw a guy feeding a stray cat. He saw some crook selling stolen stereos on a street corner. He watched a Vice cop trying to sell pot. He watched--

He watched two thugs knocking the hell out of Arnold.

Lonnie stopped the car, startled, and for a second just watched: the blonde thug hit Arnold in the stomach with a trashcan lid, the brown-haired one brought his knee up into Arnold's face and probably broke a nose. Lonnie flew out the door in a blur and was upon them in a second: "The fuck d'you think you're doin' you little monkey, pickin' on this kid!" The two thugs skedaddled. Lonnie tossed a trashcan after them.

Arnold looked bad: split lip, red all over his face that would more than likely turn purple over night. Lonnie bent over and helped the kid to his feet and walked him into the boarding house, feeling stupid for gawking instead of helping.

They said nothing until Lonnie had him inside at the kitchen table, ice on the nose. "The hell was that about, kid?" Arnold looked down at a stain on the table and focused: keep concious concious concious. "I don't know," he said. "I don' know." His voice was thick now.

Lonnie said, "You aren't gonna' like what I'm about to do, kid." Arnold looked up and Lonnie leaned across the table, grabbed the kid's nose in-between his middle and index finger's knuckles, and then re-set it with a snap. Arnold shrieked and his Grandpa walked in wearing a robe, obviously just awoken.

"What the heck's goin' on in here!" he yelled, eyeing the pair suspiciously. Lonnie said, "I think some were muggin' him. Broke his nose, the jerks." Grandpa sat down, looked at Arnold's face: blood mixed with dirt and watery tears of pain. He said, "Geez, Shortman, they really worked you over."

Lonnie watched him: was it a mugging? It looked like one, but those two punks didn't seem like the mugging type.

He decided to ask in the morning. The kid looked beat.

They helped him up to his room and when the kid was in bed, Lonnie said, "If you feel lightheaded at all, make sure to tell somebody. You might have a concussion." Arnold nodded and closed his eyes and leaned back, wincing from the soreness of his body.

Lonnie watched him a moment and then left the room, turning off the light. He called Dr. Bliss on the telephone downstairs to make sure she'd gotten home alright and to tell her about all this crazy crap.

Arnold looked up at the sky. "We told you to keep away," they'd said.

Maybe, Arnold thought, it was time to listen before they decided to hurt Helga. And with that awful thought in mind he drifted off to sleep.

* * *

**Author's Note: I REALLY hope the beating didn't seem too over-the-top. Wolfgang and Ludwig are thugs, but I don't know if they'd go this far.**

**The song is from the album _Transformer._**

**Please read and review!**


	6. In Dreams

_"Abscence is to love what wind is to fire: it extinguishes the small, and rekindles the great."_

_- **Roger de Rabutin**_

**_

* * *

_**

The dream was horrible. It was the kind of dream thats horror didn't abate upon waking, but almost multiplied. The kind you don't forget for years; the kind you try to suppress.

In the dream he sat in an execution chamber in a prison, surrounded by cardboard cutouts of the people who knew and loved. Sitting in the electric chair was the girl he'd just recently realized he was in love with: Helga Pataki. She wore her usual dress and rubber leggings. The machine she was hooked up to was terrifying in his ambiguity: a massive contraption with two spindle-like attachments pressing against Helga's temples.

Wolfgang and Ludwig stood on either side of her, in black suits. They wore makeup.

Arnold looked around him and tried to stand and help her but he realized he was chained down. There was a button in front of it. It read: "EXECUTE".

His hand went for it. Arnold wanted to hold it back, wanted to scream something to make it stop, but it wouldn't. He pressed the button and Helga's body convulsed.

It wasn't like in the movies. There was no smoke, no flashes. Her body just started jumping and jerking, twisting in the chair. Arnold saw her wrists go bloody as they moved rapidly against their holds. Her ankles as well.

And then she stopped and there was nothing. Her body slumped forward and Arnold screamed: long nad hard and loud. He expected to wake up then but no such favor would be bestowed. Instead, he heard voices.

They judged him. They called him "Monster", and "Animal."

Someone asked, "How could you let your _love _die like that?!"

Another said, "You're a beast to murder love that way. A _beast!"_

And then--

And then he woke up. Glorious sunlight streamed through the windows, bathing his face in yellow. He checked his alarm: two hours before school. He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep, not after a dream like that.

He got out of bed and hit the shower--at five AM the halls were deserted--and washed up, trying to get the dream out of his head. But it wouldn't go. He'd had a feeling it wouldn't.

After getting washed up he turned off the shower spigots and threw on a robe and looked in the mirror, preparing to brush his teeth. He gasped and the events of last night came rushing back at full force.

Arnold's face was splotchy red in some places, purple in others. His left eye was swollen something awful, black and blue, and his lips were pulpy and split. He had little bruises all over his chest and back and knuckles.

He still wondered why. Why Wolfgang and Ludwig were torturing him now, and over _Helga_ of all things. Since when did they care?

Maybe he'd find out today. Maybe not. Arnold finished his work in the bathroom and opened the door, letting out the steam. He walked down the stairs, hoping to find some cereal in the kitchen.

Instead he saw Lonnie looking pissed.

Arnold stopped in the doorway and leaned back into the darkness of the hall a little, observing. Lonnie was leaning forward a bit, staring at a page of that journal he carried around everywhere as though something cruel about him were written.

In one hand he clutched a silver fork. With a new kind of horror, Arnold watched him squeeze it in half.

The image brought back memories of a question he was going to ask, a question Gerald had put in his mind with all the stories: Lonnie as an ex-robber, Lonnie as an ex-gangster, Lonnie as an ex-convict.

He hadn't believed it then because Lonnie had been so kind. So gentle. Warm. But now, looking at him, you could see the violence in his eyes. That coldness so often associated with killers.

Arnold was tired of wondering about things. He decided to ask. What harm could it do? Worst case scenario, Lonnie would be upset with him for a while and might brood a bit. It wasn't as though he'd kill anybody for asking a simple question.

But if that was the case, Arnold thought, then why do I feel like throwing up?

He walked into the kitchen, making his presence known. Lonnie was startled but didn't jump. He said, "Geez, you're up early. You look like shi--," a pause, "...heck, kid."

"I had a bad dream and couldn't get back to sleep. Why are you up so early?"

"I'm always up this early."

"Oh."

Arnold sat poured some cereal and sat down across from him and they ate in silence for a moment. Deep breath: just ask and get it over with.

"Lonnie?"

"Yeah?"

He looked up and Arnold couldn't see it anymore. He couldn't see the violent criminal in this man.

"I wanted to ask you something."

"Shoot, Arnold."

Guuulp. Stay cool. Just get it over with.

"My friend Gerald...he said that you used to be a criminal...and, well, I..."

"He said that, huh?"

"...yeah."

Lonnie leaned back in his chair and steepled his massive hands under his chin, looking thoughtful. "I guess you want to know whether it's true or not."

Arnold nodded: that was it exactly. "Yeah."

"Well, it's sort of a long story, but I guess you got time before school...hell, why not?"

He scarfed down some more cereal, coughed into his hand, looked up at Arnold for a second as if considering some more and then began to speak. Telling his story.

"I grew up in East Hillwood, on Ackerty Street. We called it 'the pits' back then 'cause of all the potholes. Now I think I told you before how I was kind of a bully..."

"Yeah."

"Well, it goes a bit farther than that. I stopped being a bully and started being a crook right after I got released from juvie for the third time and dropped outta' high school..."

"What were you in juvenile hall for?"

"I stole a teacher's car and ram-raided a record store. So anyway, I get outta' juvie for the third time now, I'm about eighteen. I decide to skip high school 'cause I was never any good there anyway...only one thing that ever kept me in school, really." Dreamy eyes: thinking of Morgan Bliss. "So I did odd jobs for a while after that. Metal work, construction, things like that."

He sipped from a cup of coffee. Arnold was hanging on to every word.

"So one day I'm roofing this residential area and I meet this guy named Harry McDowell. McDowell already has a reputation as being somewhat of a connected guy, and so when he offers me work, I accept, of course. He starts me off collecting money for his loan sharking and stuff like that. Peanut jobs.

"And then three years into it he asks me to start hurting people. Back then I was big--not as big as I am now--and I'd done some boxing, so fighting was no problem. He had me knock the shi...crap outta' guys owed him money or wronged him somehow. A lotta' gambling addicts and drunks, guys like your buddy Kokoschka."

Arnold frowned.

"So I start doing that and then I get arrested for it and do a year in a half for assault and battery. Once I get out I decide that this mob business ain't really my scene and I split and go my own way. And that's when I started stealing.

"I got together a crew of guys from the old neighborhood and headed North, hitting banks and department stores and hotel payrolls in smaller towns. We'd have a hideout and we'd go divvy up the cash there and then kick some up to the mob guys to keep them happy and go our own way, and come back together a few months later for the same thing.

"This does one for years 'till I get busted for it and do some more time. Five years. Lotta' waste. I learned some more about the trade, about fencing, and once I get outta' the joint I get the crew together again and we go for the bigtime. Diamonds, electronics, weapons. The real money-makin' heists.

"So now I'm a player, right? I got all East Side Hillwood in my pocket. Everybody owes me a favor. And then it all comes crumbling down."

Arnold watched his face go from nostalgic to bitter to enraged. He gu-u-u-ulped.

"We'd just finished this big diamond heist, and one of the new guys in my crew decides he wants a bigger piece of the pie, and so he fu--freakin' pulls out a gun and starts shootin' once we're in the hideout and divvying stuff up. Bastard caught me in the belly, caught my friend Robbie Casper in the face. He got picked up trying to sell some of the diamonds at a pawn shop in Chicago and gave me and the rest of the guys up to save his own hide.

"But something good came out of it, kid. I saw my death that night and after I got outta' the joint for the last time I came here, and...well, here I am. Things have been goin' great, I gotta' say. You happy now? You know the whole story."

Arnold nodded. In a way he _was _satisfied, now that he was sure that Lonnie had put those days behind him.

He still had trouble seeing it. A guy like Lonnie being a thug.

Arnold checked the clock. "I have to get to school, Lonnie."

"Sure, kid. Get outta' here."

Arnold stood and went to his room and got dressed and grabbed his backpack. When he came back to the kitchen Lonnie was gone.

* * *

The bus awaited him. He felt like he had that day he'd told Helga he like-liked her. Except now it had to be different. For both their sakes. 

"Are you getting on or what?" the bus driver asked in an angry tone of voice, jerking Arnold out of his thoughts. Arnold looked up at him: fat and surly and red faced. He boarded.

The bus went silent and Arnold blushed. They all looked at him, stared at the bruises and cuts. He saw Helga's face: surprise and fear and confusion. Arnold hung his head and began to walk and every person he passed asked him what had happened or what was wrong and he ignored them, keeping his mind on walking pastHelga without saying anything or looking at her.

She said, "Arnold, what _happened?_" Arnold walked on past her and sat down in an empty seat at the back of the bus. Gerald stared for a moment and then stood and walked over.

"Man, what's _wrong_ with you? What happened? You look like you got in a fight with a sledgehammer or somethin'!" Arnold shook his head.

"It's nothing, Gerald. I don't wanna' talk about it."

"Come _on,_ Arnold. I know somethin' is up!"

"Please, Gerald."

Gerald looked at his friend and shrugged: why do I even bother?

Helga looked back at him. Tears were welling up in her eyes: had it really all been a dream? Those lovely days they'd been together?

Pheobe tried to comfort her.

Helga wanted to scream.

* * *

**Author's Note: Phew, this was a long one. Sorry for the delay!**

**I'm not sure what book/poetry collection that quote is from.**

**Please read and review!**


	7. Love and Fear

_"All the ill that is in us comes from fear, and all the good from love"._

- **_Eleanor Farjeon_**

**_

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_**

Pheobe saw everything in her friend and it made her want to cry.

They sat together at lunch, silent except for the occasional sigh from Helga and the occasional 'It'll be alright' from Pheobe. She was depressed to an alarming degree: not even angry, no emotion at all but deep sadness. Every once in a while, Helga would look over at Arnold, searching for an explanation somewhere among those bruises and cuts.

He would look away.

Arnold's table wasn't much better. Gerald deflected all questions about his bruises and signs of violence, changed the subject whenever it wavered too close to what had happened. During first recess Arnold had spilled it to Gerald, everything that had happened, and Gerald knew better than to let something like that out. If even one person knew it would be hell on earth for Arnold.

Rhonda waxed sympathetic, saying, "That poor girl. She gets what she wants, finally, and then the boy _dumps her!_ Fickle. I'm telling you, Arnold is just cruel." The other girls nodded, agreed. They all thought it was cold, even though none of them would admit to actually liking Helga all that much.

The boys were no better. Harold and Stinky and Sid made fun of him at first but now they were silent, realizing something beyond their experience had happened. Curly came by sometime during English and put a hand on Arnold's shoulder, said, "I understand how you must feel.." Arnold shook his head. "No, you don't." Curly shrugged and walked off

Hegla would try to talk to him and Arnold would avoid her, making Gerald play lookout. When he saw her coming he'd walk to the bathroom, hide in a locker, lose himself in a crowd.

The frustration was hard to bear for Helga.

She said, "Phoebe, hold my spot for me. I need to go...to the bathroom."

Phoebe looked disbelieving. "Just be careful," she said finally.

Helga nodded and stood, catching Arnold's eye: he looked like she did. What was going on?

She knew someone who might have answers.

Helga went into the hall.

* * *

DR. M BLISS - SCHOOL PSYCHIATRIST. 

Helga looked at the sign: deep breath, calm down. It's just Dr. Bliss. She'd one of the good ones. She's a friend. She _helps _you, remember?

Since that first session Helga had visited the good doctor on and off for a long time afterward, sharing things, learning more about herself as a person. Getting critique on her poetry. Dr. Bliss had helped tone down the obsession the little. Had helped Helga realize that a used gum shrine wasn't such a hot idea.

She still had shrines, though. But now they were made of wood.

Helga raised a fist to knock and then the door opened, and she looked up into the face of a man who should be on the cover of "Thug's Weekly". He wore a Hawaiian shirt and a leather jacket and had longish black hair. Fists the size of baseball mitts.

He was buttoning up his shirt. Helga saw a smudge of lipstick on his chest. She pushed past him, said, "One side, moron!" The guy looked at her and laughed: Helga scowled, said, "What's so funny!?"

"Nothin', nothin' at all. Seeya' later, tough girl." He walked off whistling. Helga shrugged and went into the office.

Dr. Bliss was seated on her desk. She looked disheveled and was applying lipstick when Helga walked on.

She smiled: pleased to see the little pink-bowed girl. "Why, Helga, this is a surprise. I haven't seen you since...well, two weeks ago. I hope everything's all right..."

Helga sighed and for a moment said nothing.

"Well...there is something wrong."

"Take a seat."

Helga sat on the couch, leaned back, closed her eyes against the tears--of shame? sadness?--that were begging to come out.

"Tell me what's happened, Helga."

Helga did. She finished with the events of this day, the avoiding and the strange bruises and all the whispering the other kids were doing.

Dr. Bliss leaned back, letting the information work it's way around her mind. Finally she said, "I think Arnold may have decided that he doesn't like you the same way you like him, Helga. I can't explain the bruises or any of that. That's Arnold's business. And I'm not even saying that he _for sure_ doesn't like you anymore. But you have to be prepared for that. Okay?"

Helga stared at the floor. The tears were out now. She said, "I don't know if I can do that."

"You'll have to try."

"Easy for you to say."

"Trust me, Helga. I know what you're going through." A flashback: Lonnie showing up at her doorstep in the sixth grade with a bloody nose and a broken cheekbone, saying "I lo--" and then passing out and revealing a switchblade wound in lower back.

"Alright...thanks, Dr. Bliss. I really...thank you."

A nod. Helga stood and wiped her eyes, blew her nose, walked to the door and out into the hall. Shoulders slumped. Head bowed. Like she was in a funeral procession.

Dr. Bliss watched her go and for a horrible moment wondered if nine-year olds ever considered suicide.

God help her, she thought. Poor girl.

* * *

**Author's Note: Another longish one! Should be...two/three/four more chapters to go.**

**Please read and review, thanks!**


	8. Jigsaw Puzzle

_**NOTE: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS NAUGHTY LANGUAGE**_

_Oh, the gangster looks so frightening_

_With his Luger in his hand_

_But when he gets home to his children,_

_he's a family man_

_But when he comes to the nitty gritty_

_He can shove in his knife_

_Yes he looks quite religious_

_He's been an outlaw all his life_

_Me, I'm waitin' here so patiently_

_Lyin' on the floor_

_I'm just tryin' to do this jigsaw puzzle_

_Before it rains, anymore_

**_Jig-saw Puzzle, _**by **_The Rolling Stones_**

* * *

The day passed on and Arnold felt as though he were carrying a barbell round his neck.

It went slow: the hours turned to eons, the teacher's talk was nothing but babble to him. He checked the clock. Twenty minutes to go.

Mr. Simmons had stopped speaking but Arnold didn't notice and soon the teacher was beside him, staring down, concern in his eyes and voice.

"Arnold, are you alright? You don't seem to be your very special self today."

"I'm alright. Just tired."

Helga was staring at him. He looked away.

"Well, alright, Arnold. If something's wrong just let me know."

"Yeah…sure."

When the bell finally rang he sighed in relief and jetted out of the room, moving at a trot. He stuffed his books in his locker, grabbed his backpack, and was almost out the door when she caught up to him.

He stopped when she called his name and looked at her face: anger and sadness, mixed. "What is the _matter with you!?"_ Her voice boomed in his ears, the loudest thing he'd ever heard. It pained him.

"Helga, I'm sorry. I just can't be near you anymore."

"Arnold, _please _tell me what's going on! Why are you so beat up? Why are you pretending like I don't _exist!?"_

I can't tell her, he thought. I can't. I shouldn't even be near her this long.

"Helga, I'm sorry."

He turned. He walked away.

Helga stood by the school's door for a long time. She missed the bus. Tears welled up and she slammed her fist on the wall, denting a bulletin board, and then began to arduous walk home.

Arnold rode the bus with Gerald and neither spoke. When the bus hit Arnold's stop he got off without saying goodbye and walked up the steps to the boarding house and opened the door, standing aside for the usual parade of animals. Grandpa was asleep, watching TV, and God knew where Grandma was.

He leaned against the wall, tossing his backpack by the coat rack, burying his face in his arms. There were no tears. Arnold wasn't one to cry.

A shape appeared in the darkness behind him. Arnold looked up, said, "Hey, Lonnie."

"What's wrong, kid?"

Arnold told him about his day: the looks, the avoiding. All of it. Lonnie digested it and then asked a question: "Where do those two punks who knocked the crap outta' you hang out at?"

"Uh...what time is it?"

"Quarter past four."

"They're probably at Slausen's, the ice cream place."

A pause. Arnold looked at the floor and back up, eyes full of question.

"Why do you want to know, Lonnie?"

"Because there isn't a thing right about this whole deal. I'll see you."

He was out the door now, into the street.

Arnold stared.

* * *

The streets were dark and the air felt cool on his face, on his hands, on his ankles. Lonnie lit a cigarette, looked at reflection in a puddle and fed himself pep talk:

'So what if you're old. You can still be mean. You can still be hard. They're just punks, after all. Fifteen year old crooks.'

He checked street signs, buttoned up his leather jacket. Checked his weapons: a switchblade in the back pocket for show. He didn't even dream of hurting these punks. How sad would that be? A man in his late forties beating on kids?

There it was: Slausen's Ice Cream. Lonnie flicked the cigarette away into the darkness and it left a trail of embers and he watched it, transfixed, having flashbacks: the time he'd broken Ben Navarro's legs with Louis Niall, the time he'd shot Benny Goodwhite in the ass out in that alley, the time he'd taken the eye out of an employee during a robbery in a little upstate town, the name of which escaped him.

Bad memories. He wondered if he really _could _be mean again. Too late to back out now.

He walked inside the parlour, clocked the punks: one blonde and the other brown haired, held back so much they might as well leave school altogether. Lonnie knew the feeling.

They were sitting with a group of other kids, all of them about the same temperament. Lonnie felt their eyes on him: judging, assessing.

He sat down right beside Wolfgang and flicked out the switchblade and started cleaning his nails with it. Wolfgang guuuuulped.

"I wanna' know," he said, teeth bared, voice rough and raspy and cigarette-hued, "Why you and your pissant buddy here knocked the shit outta' my friend Arnold. I wanna' know now."

He looked him in the eyes: dead green and muddy brown. Their friends left them, heading towards the bathroom. Wolfgang was sweating bullets. He wanted to confess but his buddy still looked mean and it told Lonnie something: Ludwig was the hard one.

"What about you?" he asked, standing and moving in close to Ludwig, so close he could smell the double-chocolate cone on his breath. "You wanna' tell me something?"

No dice. Ludwig said nothing.

Lonnie kicked the stool out from under him.

Ludwig hadn't expected it and he fell on his ass and yelped in surprise, looked up and NOW his eyes were full of fear.

Lonnie grabbed the stars and pulled them down. He got MAD at this kid. He got ANGRY.

"_Tell me now, you fuckin' punk!"_ He kicked the stool and it broke into a million pieces and scattered all over the place. The counterman had already split: out the back and into the kitchen. Wolfgang sat rigid, steadily dying of fear.

Ludwig conceded. "Bob Pataki!" he said. "Bob Pataki paid us to hassle the kid!"

Lonnie went limp.

The girl's fucking _father._

All he could say was "Why?" but Ludwig didn't have an answer. Not that Lonnie had expected one.

He stared at the scene around him and felt ashamed. A grown man, behaving some kid in a tantrum. The counterman was back, glaring, and Lonnie shelled out fifty bucks and said, "For the stool. I'm sorry about this."

He realized there were other people in the shop, and he realized they were staring at him.

He walked out with his head up high.

* * *

Helga was seriously considering calling him.

But of course she didn't. Instead she lied on her bed and looked up at the ceiling, counting the cracks, wondering if maybe this was just some kind of nightmare.

Of course it would happen, she thought. Of _course._ I finally get him, the boy of my dreams, the sole purpose of my existence, and for no reason at all he _shuns me!_

It was a travesty. It was unfair. Helga stood and paced her room, trying to put the pieces together and coming up with nothing.

Piece number one: Arnold realized that he likes Helga about as much as she likes him. She sighed, thinking of his speech that day in the schoolyard after the bus incident: "I thought about it, and while you may be mean sometimes...the good in you outweighs the bad by far. There's enough good inside of you to fill an ocean." She'd cried the night afterward, thinking about those words. Realizing he'd finally seen past her rough veneer, and blah blah blah.

Piece number two: Arnold leaves the cafteria and comes back with bruises. Nothing else said on the subject.

Piece number three: a day later, Arnold comes onto the bus with _more _bruised and an "ignore Helga" agenda.

None of the pieces _fit._ It was like a math problem missing important variables or a book missing entire chapters.

Her father didn't even cross her mind.

Helga sat back down on the bed, looked out the window, and was about to erupt in an angst-ridden poetic monologue when her stomach, of all things, growled. She said, "Whoo, I gotta' eat somethin'," and then stood and walked out of her room and down the staircase and--

And then she PAUSED. She listened to voices: her father's and another man's, both indistinct. She moved further down the staircase and paused about halfway, looking through the railing and seeing something odd.

It was the man was Dr. Bliss's office! He was talking to her father, low and hard. Big Bob looked annoyed. Not mad or scared, but annoyed.

The big man in the Hawaiian shirt and leather jacket towered over her father. Her father was Eugene compared to this guy. He said, "Listen, Pataki, you're killin' this kid. You're killin' _your _kid!"

"Mind your own business! I know how to be a father, thank you!"

"I don't think you do. If you did you wouldn't be putting your daughter through this _crap._ You ever even stop to think about her for _one second?_ For an iota of time?"

"Listen, I don't have to take this from some overgrown ape. Who the heck are you, anyway? I mean, criminy, you can't just come barging in here and--"

The big man moved fast and he had Big Bog in his clutches: shirtfront bundled up in massive baseball-mitt fists that looked gnarled and scarred up.

The big man said, "You call off your thugs or I'll hurt you."

Pataki replied, "I'm shaking."

The man looked at him for a long time and when he realized that he couldn't break him he let go and walked to the door and shook his head and opened it, saying one thing before he left the house: "You're a blowhard, Pataki."

Big Bob crossed his arms. He scoffed.

Helga growled. She started down the stairs.

* * *

**Author's Note: First off, I apologize for the language! I hope I didn't offend anyone and I hope it wasn't too out of place :(**

**I really wish now that I had had Bob hire some more adult thugs, so that the confrontation with Lonnie could've been more action packed. Ah, well. That's how it goes, I guess.**

**The next chapter should be a confrontation between Helga and her father, the chapter after that a sappy reunion, and the chapter after that an epilogue.**

**The song is from the album _Beggar's Banquet_. And on that note, I wanted to ask: are the constant quotes and song lyrics annoying, entertaining/interesting, or anything like that? I'd like to hear the reader's opinion on it, for my future work's sake.**

**ALSO PLEASE READ AND REVIEW! I hope you've enjoyed it so far!**


	9. You Asked For Nothing

_How would you show it?_

_You see through all the rest_

_I don't know when,_

_It won't be this time_

**_Stars and Sons_**, by **_Broken Social Scene_**

**_

* * *

_**

"_Dad!"_

Her voice boomed like a cannon and it was loud enough to make Miriam--asleep in the kitchen--raise her head for a moment, before once again plopping it back down with an audible thud.

Bob flinched and turned around with a scowl, but Helga saw the fear in there. It spurred her forward.

"I...can't..._believe you!"_

"What're you talkin' about, girl?"

"You know what I'm talking about! I just heard you say it!"

Bob sighed, prepared himself for a verbal barrage. But nothing came and when he looked up, Helga didn't even seem mad. Her one eyebrow was dropped, her eyes sorrowful. A deep frown.

"Why would you do this to me, dad?"

"Come on, girl! It was for your own good!"

"_How would you even know!"_

"Don't you raise your voice at me, missy!"

Helga curled her fists, bared her teeth. She wished she were big all of a sudden. Big like that guy in the leather jacket. She'd break Bob's face.

"You really don't get it, do you!? Arnold makes me happy. I've wanted this for _so long_ dad, and now that I finally have it, _you want to take it away from me! WHY!?"_

She was screeching now. Bob sputtered, looked for words, but there were none.

"You spend _years_ ignoring me, not noticing my existence at _all, _favoring the oh-so perfect Olga...and then you finally _do_ take notice of my life, and you want to **RUIN IT!**"

He still looked for words and he still found none. Helga was advancing now and Bob backed up, stopping in the middle of his trophy room and falling into the big red easy chair planted there.

Pictures all around: Olga grinning and Helga scowling, standing off to the side. He remembered the day she'd been born. He hadn't been in the hospital.

The pictures looked like they were scowling at _him._ A floodgate tweaked: didn't open, but was pulled up a bit.

Helga was still yelling. "_Why would you do it!? WHY!?"_

The floodgate opened.

Bob bellowed.

"_'Cause I'M SCARED!"_

Silence. A thud: Miriam woke up and fell back asleep. Helga said, "What are you talking about, dad?"

"I'm scared of you, girl. I...don't know _how _to be a dad. Everything came so easy with Olga! She always got the good grades, and was polite, and never got in trouble..."

He looked at the floor. He looked up at Helga, studied her face: she looked liked him more than Olga did.

"And then...you came along. And I thought, 'Well, how hard can this be?'. But you were so different, girl! We started getting calls from the school about you in fights, and about you writing that...poetry that you write, and we just didn't know _what to do._ And...and I guess it just got easier to shove it all under the carpet. Not to face it. And now this problem comes along, and after all these years of...ignoring things, I guess I just got scared and overreacted."

Helga's mouth dropped open. Her dad just admitted a problem. An _emotional_ problem. What in God's name just happened?

She said, "Dad...uh..it's alright. I mean, we all get scared..."

"It's _not_ alright. I've wasted all these years just ignoring you...Helga. That's a lot of time."

He stood and did a pose: triumph. "That...is..._it! _From this day forward, I _promise you _that I'll take time off and try..try to get to know you better. Maybe even help you with things."

It had to be a dream.

"Dad...what about--"

"Aw, go ahead. Do what makes you happy. Go to him."

"...thanks, dad. I really don't know what to say."

"Then don't say anything. Just be back for dinner."

Helga turned. She ran.

Bob sat back down and ran a hand through his hair, rubbing off sweat. Something felt different. Something in the air and in his chest and in his mind.

He walked into the kitchen and started dinner. Miriam snored peacefully, dead to the world, and for a second Bob considered waking her up and telling her to get off the hooch once and for all.

He decided against it. That bridge would be crossed some other time.

Outside, Helga ran.

* * *

**Author's Note: Sappy factor +1000. Sorry! Two more chapters to go, methinks. A conclusion and an epilogue. Maybe an alternate chapter as well.**

**The song is from the album _You Forgot It In People._**


	10. Music and Politics

_If ever I would stop thinking about music and politics,_

_I would tell you that the personal revolution_

_Is far more difficult_

_That the first step,_

_Of any revolution_

_I would tell you that music is the expression of emotion_

_And that politics is merely the decoy of perception_

**_Music and Politics, _**by **_The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy_**

**_

* * *

_**

Star light, star bright. It was raining. She could still see the sky through the clouds.

She ran through the streets of the city she loved, the sidewalks she adored. Above her the sky shone with black brilliance and the stars in it looked like pinholes to heaven, little glimpses of a wonderous place beyond that infinite darkness that she was just about to go to.

Just about.

She manuevered the streets expertly and dodged several things: cars and people, mostly. At one point she came to a mugger and said, "I'm sorry I can't I have to tell a boy that I _need him_!"

The mugger said, "Go for it!"

Helga wondered if she'd imagined the whole exchange.

There it was: the boarding house. Looming there in the night. She felt no dread. No fear. It was alright now. Everything was alright.

She hit the door and realized how she looked: spattered with mud and drenched from the rain She didn't care. She knocked.

Arnold opened the door and said, "Helga, please, I--" and Helga kissed him before he could say anything else, full on the lips. When it broke she started speaking.

"I love you Arnold and I just talked to my dad, and everything is _all right! _I found out what's been happening to you and it got squared away, everything's fine, we can _be together again!"_

Arnold's jaw dropped: from the kiss, from Helga's words. He grabbed her in an embrace.

Helga swooned. Helga fluttered. Her heart started pounding at four hundred beats a second and her mind clouded and all at once she knew that she needed him and he needed her and that's all they'd want.

He said, "Do you want to come inside?"

She replied, "And here we go."

And for the second time, there they went.

* * *

**Author's Note: One more chapter to go! I really hope you've been enjoying this, it's been a blast to write.**

**The song is from the album _Hypocrisy is the Greatest Luxury._ Please read and review, seriously! I'd really like to hear some feedback.**

**Speaking of which, big thanks to Acosta Perez Jose Ramiro for his reviews and for the whole idea behind this fic. I appreciate it to no end.**

**I might make another after this one, set farther in the future, so if you liked this one and Guiding Light keep an eye out for it.**


	11. You Are The Everything Epilogue

_You are here, with me_

_You are here, with me_

_You have been here,_

_And you are everything_

**_You Are The Everything, _**by **_R.E.M_**

**_

* * *

_**

A common scene. Marriage in sunny July.

It was a big wedding, over a hundred guests all spead out in the pews. Decked out in tuxes and checking their watches: where _is _woman?

Everyone was there: Harold and Patty sat near the back, holding hands. They'd never gone apart. They were slated to get married the next year. Harold had fulfilled his dream and was now the owner of Green Meats, seeing as how Mr. Green had retired. Sometimes he'd still come in and badger Harold. Sometimes. It was getting hard for him to move.

Rhonda sat alone a few aisles up, talking frantically on a cellphone. The years had been kind to her body, her face, but her mind had been slowly melting into that of a blue-blood princess with little regard for anyone but herself. At age twenty-five she had hardly made billions playing the stock market. There hadn't been in a man in her life so far and it was unlikely one would appear.

Stinky sat beside her, looking uncomfortable in the suit. During the past few years he'd pioneered a new wave of agriculture and made millions selling the ideas to farms. Love had steered his way: him and Gloria were married and had a child coming.

Sid was leaning against a back wall, wearing sunglasses to hide his bloodshot eyes, going to the bathroom every five minutes and sweating uncontrollably. He was addicted to speed and LSD. He'd done three years in prison for a drug store burglary. He still wore white boots. Nobody wanted to stand beside him because he smelt like cigarettes and cheap whiskey. The doctors told him that if he continued with his lifestyle he'd only live another two and a half years, tops. They said 'go to rehab'. Sid told them to go fuck themselves.

Eugene sat with Sheena: an odd couple, her so tall and him so short. He'd studied drama in college and had become a stage actor, one of the most illustrious in Hillwood. His luck hadn't changed: even at the wedding he wore a cast from a recent accident. But, unbeknownst to him, something lucky _had_ happened: Sheena was pregnant with his child. She hadn't told him yet because she was afraid he'd jinx it. He wouldn't.

Nadine and Pea-Pod kid didn't get together until high school, where they fell madly in love. Afer graduation Nadine took an internship with the Red Cross, working in Africa. Pea-Pod went with her and they came back married, converted to some kind of strange cultish religion, tanned almost black, and happy as can be.

Lila sat alone on the groom's side near the front, smiling at the groom himself waiting at the altar. She'd moved out of her father's house as soon as she hit eighteen and had gone to community college whilst living in a flophouse. She spent years making money. Eventually she went to college, spent a few more years doing nothing but work, and came out as one of the most respected psychiatrists in the country. She'd published self-help books. She was treating Sid at the moment and was, against her will, developing a strong attraction towards him. Eventually she'd save his life and they'd marry. Eventually.

Gerald stood beside Arnold at the altar and Phoebe across from him where Helga would be, both of them exchanging glances and furtive looks. For a long time they'd been together. Since freshman year, on and off. They dated through college. Gerald got a few bachelor's degrees and ended up playing saxophone at a blues bar. Phoebe worked at a research facility downtown, trying to uncover a cure for a rare type of disease that was destroying villages in Eastern Europe. They got together everytime they could. Gerald was planning on proposing to her at the reception party. Arnold knew about it. It made him happy.

The boarders sat in the second aisle from the front, Oscar with Suzie, Ernie by himself, and Mr. Hyunh with his daughter. Oscar's gambling debts had been cleared up by Lonnie at some point and he got a job selling dictionaries. Ernie was retired and lived in relative laziness, reading books and writing a memoir that wouldn't get published in a million years. Mr. Hyunh spent a lot of time with his daughter. He learned how to cook better.

Grandpa and Grandma sat in the top pew at the front aisle, grinning from ear to ear, giving thumbs-ups and winks. The boarding house was in excellent condition as far as that went: almost every boarder still lived there and the place was in good shape. Their health was declining but their minds were still sharp, except Grandma's, of course. They were proud of Arnold. They loved him to death. At some point Grandpa leaned forward and said, "I told ya that girl liked you." Arnold chuckled and told him to shut up.

Helga's mother and older sister were sitting across the way on the bride's side, front aisle. They were crying. At some point Olga had gotten married, in France, to a man who called himself "Marquis" and dressed in cravats and seventeenth century suits. He was a pervert with an insatiable sexual appetite. He wrote pornographic novels. Olga loved him and no one knew why. Even now as he sat beside her at a wedding, there were whispers of disgusting bedroom antics in her ear. Olga would blush. She'd carry out the disgusting bedroom antics later that night. Miriam had learned to control her alchol problem but the years of abuse had taken their toll, and although she was now capable of carrying on a conversation she still nodded off now and again and lost her train of thought constantly. Bob was nowhere to be seen. He was supposed to bring Helga.

Lonnie Doyle sat with Arnold's grandparents. Dr. Bliss was beside him. He looked older: crow's feet and laugh lines, black hair still long but graying. He had never gone back to the violent days but he stilled missed the excitement. Dr. Bliss helped him with that. She helped him with everything. It had taken him a while, but Lonnie had finally broken into the film business and he was directing a feature film to be released next September. The film was called "Guiding Light". It was a romance about two kids, one of which pretended to hate the other to cover up her true feelings of adoration. It had been a novel first, by Helga G. Pataki. Word on the street was that she was writing the screenplay as well. Dr. Bliss was pregnant, about a month into it. When Lonnie heard the news he punched a hole in the wall and kissed her so hard that Dr. Bliss thought she might've lost a tooth. He was still big. He still loved Dr. Bliss more than anything. He still had nightmares about the man he'd killed before his last prison sentence. He still talked with Arnold.

Arnold stood tall and broad shouldered, hair slicked back . He wore the little blue hat with his tux: out of respect. His parents were dead. When he'd found out he denied it until he saw the bodies. Helga comforted him. Three days later he'd asked her to marry him and then they'd made love. Him and Helga had stayed together all through high school. They went to different colleges for different reasons but saw each other at every chance and when they graduated and got jobs--Arnold worked for a corporation in a mediator capacity, essentially doing the same thing he'd always been doing but wih businessmen, and Helga started putting her love for Arnold into books and was now a published author with five highly successful novels to her name, and, of course, one screenplay--they started living together in Arnold's old room at the boarding house. It was an idyllic lifestyle: when Arnold traveled Helga went with him and when they were home they spoke about all things. Complete devotion to each other. Helga's dreams answered a thousand times.

"Gerald," Arnold said, tugging at his collar. Sweating bullets. "What if there was an accident?"

Gerald sighed and was about to tell Arnold to calm down when the double door's of the massive church opened and white light spilled in.

Helga came with it. Her father walked her to the altar, waving, grinning. He was still big. He was balding. He played poker with Lonnie Doyle on Thursdays. His relationship with Helga was still disruptive, but they got along most of the time. A drastic improvement.

She grinned at Arnold and tried to think of something witty to say but nothing came.

"You look beautiful."

"Guh."

The priest started speaking. They exchanged vows: Arnold's short and to the point, Helga's long and verbose and embarrassingly emotional. They exchanged I-Do's. They exchanged rings. Arnold took Helga's last name and so the priest said, "Mr and Mrs Pataki, I pronounce you man and wife."

They kissed: long and hard.

The room erupted.

A trail of happy people followed them to the limousine outside and that trail of people formed a mob around it, throwing rice and screaming and laughing. Helga saw Pheobe give her a thumbs up. Arnold and Gerald did their secret handshake.

The car pulled away. They kissed again.

Helga said, "I'm pregnant."

Arnold flew into the sky, grabbed the sun, pulled it down.

He said, "Is that good thing?"

Helga called him a football head. She grinned. He laughed.

The car pulled away into the sunrise.

* * *

**Excerpt, Helga Geraldine Pataki's diary, pages 234-236.**

I had the child last night. I've never seen anything so wonderful.

Arnold wanted to name him Leonard, and since I had no better idea that's what we called him. Leonard Pataki. It sounds good. The baby turned out beatiful: my hair and Arnold's eyes. Luckily for me he didn't get Arnold's head. I really, _really _didn't to have to push something like _that _out.

Since his birth we've done little but lounge around the house. Watching him. It's strange how this baby can enthrall us so much.

Lonnie came by yesterday and we talked about the movie, and him and Arnold shared a beer and watched a game show on TV. It's sweet how they get along. I can't wait to see Dr. Bliss again.

That's all for tonight, Diary. Arnold is beckoning. I don't even know why were bother going to sleep, they baby'll just wake us up. Oh, well. Maybe we'll fit in an hour or so.

- Helga G. Pataki

PS: I still smell his hair and I still have the locket. Everyone has secrets.

PSS: God, I love him. He's my everything.

**THE END

* * *

**

**Author's Note: Nothing much to say, except please read and review, PLEASE. The song is from the album _Green._**

**It's really been a blast writing this. Like I said in the last chapter, I might do yet another sequel if I find the time. I really do hope you enjoyed it, and I hope it wasn't too sappy!**


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